You should normally choose just one track from 1 to 3 for the main course. In some cases, the modules within a track follow directly from previous modules in that track (especially in Track 1). In general, we advise against mixing and matching modules from the different main tracks. If you have specific requirements for this, or if you are unsure of which track is best for you, please contact us directly before registering, to discuss your needs, on gate-fig@sheffield.ac.uk

Track 1: Introduction to GATE and Text Mining

This is the best place to start if you are completely new to GATE. This track covers the following topics;

Module 1: Introduction to GATE Developer

GATE concepts

Finding your way around the GUI

Loading and using existing processing resources and plugins

Loading, annotating and viewing existing language resources

Creating and using applications

Module 2: Information Extraction and ANNIE

Basic introduction to Information Extraction

Running and evaluating an information extraction project

Using and customising ANNIE, GATE's IE tool

Using the Corpus QA and other evaluation tools

Introduction to semantic annotation with ontologies

Module 3: Introduction to JAPE

Using JAPE grammars for annotation manipulation

Using JAPE for named entity recognition

Module 4: Introduction to Teamware, GateCloud, and Mímir

Teamware: A web-based collaborative corpus annotation tool

GateCloud: Low-cost and low-effort scalability of information extraction to terabytes of text

Mímir: Semantic Indexing and search over text, annotations, and ontologies

Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites, though it might be a good idea to run through some GATE Developer tutorials prior to attending, to make the most of the experience.

Track 2: Programming in GATE

This track is appropriate for those interested in using GATE mainly from the API (GATE Embedded). Topics include the following;

Prerequisites: Ability to program using Java. Although Track 1 is not a prerequisite for taking Track 2, it can be a useful progression. Alternatively, those who are new to GATE might want to spend some time looking at the learning materials on this site, for example the Matrixware tutorials, before attending Track 2.

Track 3: Advanced GATE

This track introduces more advanced functionality within GATE. Unlike Track 2, however, it does not depend on any Java programming skills;

It's all about the networks: exploiting the social connections and user interactions

Delivered by Leon Derczynski and Kalina Bontcheva

Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media; ideally some knowledge of JSON

Research Experience Talks

The research talks are scheduled to allow participants from all tracks to come together and learn about the kind of projects being done with GATE. Talks will vary between FIGs but the kinds of topics covered in the past have been as follows: